Closing Statement from Jimmy Strobl

Jun 30 2011:
When proving "x" exists, the onus of proof is on the claimant.
In the case where x is a Deity, it is up to the supporters of it prove that their deity is real.
If an astrologer claimed that stars were made of gas, it would be his responsibility to support evidence as to why. No one is obligated to offer evidence saying stars are not made of gas UNTIL the astrologer has offered his evidence.

If a christian said that god is real because it can't be disproved, their argument is invalid because it can't be proved either. In order for a claim to be disproved, an attempt must be made first to prove it.

There are is an infinite number of claims that can't be disproved, but a finite number of claims that can.

By the way, did you know that I have a pet optonokter? I can't show you because it lives in the center of Mars, but I can subconsciously communicate to it telepathically. Don't believe me? Well if you can't prove that I'm lying then IT MUST BE TRUE ;)

Jul 1 2011:
Dan, I take issue with your characterization of the optonokter as your 'pet.' Telepathic communication may give you a form of limited access to its workings, but you cannot truly be its caretaker, as it exists beyond your grasp and control. Perhaps the matter should be re-explored from the opposite perspective: the psychic powers that provide for telepathy are not derivative from your DNA structures; rather, they are possessed and controlled the optonokter, making you the object of its communcative actions. Is it not worth considering that perhaps you are its pet?

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Jul 12 2011:
S.R. Ahmadi,
I think you are absolutely right..."people on ted are not interested to hear...sermons". If you ever get to the place in yourself when you can have a reasonable discussion, without sermons that promote your own limited belief, people may be interested in discussing with you. I'm not seeing that in you.

You write..."when women enter a debate hyjack it to emotional talks instead of logical".
What is your point in making that statement on this thread? You are criticizing half the TED population, and it has nothing to do with this topic.

You state..."Mullah's have beard...one day a Mullah shaves his beard..."
That has nothing to do with the topic

The fish understands what water is....has nothing to do with the topic.

The pot is calling the kettle black...
Women hyjack debates with emotional "stuff"??? Are you kidding me!!!!!!!!!!!
It's pretty emotional to tell everybody who does not believe in his/her god over and over and over again that s/he is going to hell, don't you think?

The primary reason I consider myself Agnostic rather than an Atheist is because I have no reasonable answer for how the Universe [and reality as we know it] started. What initiated the whole causal chain that has led to the creation of our Universe?

Could it have always existed? No, that would exempt all matter from needing to have a primary cause (or causes).
Did it spontaneously appear due to purely arbitrary happenstance? Purely arbitrary event = inconvenient impossibility
Is our Universe merely the result of a fluctuation of "nothing"? (along the lines of Krauss' theory) I don't know, seems semi-plausible I guess.

P.S. - I'm not arguing that the only other option is a deity. I'm just laying out some theories and looking for feedback. I'm on the fence.

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"Why/How do you think it is a concept that is often difficult for people to embrace?"

Possibly because spontaneity has no guidelines, no rules, no laws!... (which can be scary and disconcerting to many of us!)

"And I think the idea of spontaneity is linked to what we call 'inspiration', of which, is the starting point of creativity that at times leads to the musings/concept of 'free will'. Is there a scientific explanation for this process? What do you think?"

From what I've heard... scientifically speaking, that moment of creativity results from neurons firing in a drastically new and unique way due to exposure to new environments. (I heard this in a TED talk a couple months ago.)

,Your exchange is getting right at the heart of why belief systems become so rigid ( including the memes that float around TED Connversations)

There seems to a sense of security in shared knowledge right or wrong

I agree with both of you that being comfortable with randomness, with spontaneity, with the unknown and unknowable the seeminggly impossible and inexplicable is vital to all human activity not just to art and poetry. ( And by unknown and unknowable I refer to big questions in science e.g. what is the other 95% of te universe made of and why is it invible? what is gravity anyway and why is it so weak? What makes an individual human cell spontaneoulsy change ?)

The TED talk on surrendering or judgment to "Experts" was really pointing to that as well, I think. The "Filter Bubble" referred to at another TED Talk feeds that. Tom Atlee has been exploring that in a series of essays at his posterous blog and also at the website for the Co-Intelligence Insitute.. Atlee calls it "The Commodification of Narcisissim" and suggest in part that it s caused by disenfranchisement and a sense of powerlessness. Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf Schools emphasizes the importance of intuition in developing human intelligence and in discovery and interpretation.

The question is if you are so locked into your belief system ( and here I am including our Dawkinists who repeat the same phrases over and over and over with a dogma that is as limiting and mystifying as the creationsist and the Tea Party Republicans)..how do you change that? How do you move whole cultures out of this lock step way of thinking? Out of passivity into being engaged and creative in reshaping our culture?) I was trying to explore that a bit in my conversation on updating our belief systems.What you are pointing to is key.

Jul 1 2011:
Proving something requires truth, which in element means verifying a result. This is completely impossible with an ancient text (foundations of most religions). Even if it predicted certain things happening, this can just be put down to coincidence. No less explainable than a winning lottery ticket.

Proof requires evidence, religion is called "faith" as it requires belief without evidence.

Jul 1 2011:
Aren't we all condemned to "believe" until we reach the point of "knowing" The Atheist as well as the Theist...
No one knows for sure that "for them" the sun will rise tomorrow... most likely it will for most of us... but there is always that little chance...
One can explain the universe logically, mathematically, with laws of physics that we understand to apply both to microcosm and macrocosm ... but the mystery of it all awakens a feeling of awe that cannot be denied. Without this feeling of awe and the longing to understand the principles involved in everything we can sense. But our senses are limited in many degrees as well as our thinking. But as history has shown, mankind has developed in leaps and bounds towards a fuller understanding of the physical world.. and this is very good. On the other hand, what we today would call "faith" or the "perhaps" once known realms of the invisible world have disappeared for us... thus we establish "re-legion" or to re- link with this invisible world. Now I have taken off into a non-scientific platform by speaking of the invisible. But I ask you, what is your own thinking if not an invisible and most essential invisible part of your being..? People don't realize this that their thinking is the "spiritual" part of their being. Neither the Theist or the Atheist realize this... Can you deny your own thinking because of the fact that it is immaterial....? Can you weigh and measure and thus prove that you have a thought.... right now..... Can you then "prove" that you think....??

Jun 30 2011:
Saying there is asymptotic proof is highly dependent on what you consider evidence and probable, making it subjective. There is no [objective] probabilistic proof. What is your counterargument for the assertion that "some thing cannot come from nothing"? I'm not asking rhetorically, I'm curious.

Jul 1 2011:
Well, according to what I think to understand about the universe, virtual particles come out of nothing... so I cannot completely agree with that assertion.

I cannot go into detail about subjectivity, but I go by with what I know (I cannot do otherwise).
If we had enough time and mutual understanding, we can argue what we both agree on as evidence and assign values to it, according to certain assumptions.

Is a book on how plausible reasoning works. It is a very recent book, and the math becomes rather complicated after a while...
Anyway, asymptotic approximations are accepted tools in math and statistics.

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Jul 3 2011:
Jim,
If I understand you correctly, we can't have any real "proof" of anything other than if it is in the realm of a purely mathematical or logical domain. To add another would be geometry. This is something that Christophe should read carefully. On this I fully agree. Proof shows to be a rather illusive self delusion when it comes to mathematically trying to convince oneself and others that their own world view is at all scientifically provable. To try to draw the poker card of a mathematical calculation as "proof for a view of life (Atheist in this case) is neither logical or reasonable. I used the word foolish as to the "proposition" which is actually Jimmy Stroble's and not Chris's at all... so it should be he that might feel offended ..... Although Chris also fell into the fallacy of this way of thinking. So I'm at least reassured that someone along this line of threads agrees with me that to "prove" a certain perspective on life is not worthy of discussing.... It makes one sound very unscientific ........ not to mention naive...

Jul 1 2011:
Any idea for which there is no evidence objectively cannot rise over any other idea of the same vein. This is quite independent of how many people believe it to be true. Thus, the existence of God is one idead out of a quasi infinity of possible ideas without evidence. One divided by infinity is almost nearly 0. That is not to say that it isn't possible, but it is so improbable that for one to act as though it were definitely true is prepousterous. People may believe what they want, but when that conducts them to view homosexuality as a sin and mysogeny as the natural way of things, then a line has been crossed. Why should people have to suffer the behaviour of people who are convinced by an improbable scenario?

Jul 1 2011:
I'm only arguing that a supreme and everlasting entity could exist... nothing more. I don't let religious dogma override logic and proven scientific data. My faith is totally personal and without restriction... I agree lines are crossed when that sort of thing happens.

Jul 1 2011:
Hi Austin.................I will go along with you. I believe that an uncaused cause exists but I am certainly not doctrinal nor dogmatic. I love everyone (using that as a verb and not an emotion) I am human and sometimes my "evil twin" comes out,but that is only when I become irrational. I am not above anyone and no one is above me Smile

Jul 1 2011:
Hi Helen, Matthieu, Austin and Christophe:>)
I love everyone too Helen...it's just fun:>) I'm also amused by the arguments. You are stating your arguments based on known theories. Do you honestly believe that as humans we have ALL the information?

P.S. Helen,
I finally answered your question on the "what do you think about death" site, and I apologize for the delay. I was away at my son's wedding:>)

Jul 1 2011:
Hi Colleen! Long time! I've been to busy these past few months to keep up on TED, but this conversation seemed so interesting that I just couldn't resist.
Although I don't really think anyone can "prove" anything about being an atheist... but I think we can really get a good exchange of ideas around the subject. I see that NDE is already on the agenda .... Good Luck!!

Jul 1 2011:
Austin,
And your right Austin ! Religious dogma should absolutely never override your logical mind. It should never override anyone at all. Any action taken in the world that is done out of the conviction of a religious dogma dictating to me what I should do is a totally unfree action. But logic can be unified with an understanding of the spiritual world without any contradictions. This seems to be the biggest gap for many.. There is no bridge between the two. But I say that there is.... perhaps later we can get into what and where these bridges are.

Jul 1 2011:
Of course we don't have all the answers Colleen, but while we're looking for the answers, let's not pretend to have the answer at the expense of other individuals. Also, let's put it out there that some forms of theism are incompatible with reality even with the current knowledge we have, such as young Earth Creationism, which contradicts observations in just about all the fields of science.

Jul 1 2011:
In case you were worried I wasn't talking about you, I'm not sure what your religious views are. I'm talking about the millions of theists who take their beliefs to be fact at the detriment of many in society. Should have made that clearer, sorry.

Jul 2 2011:
Hi Matthieu,
I'm not worried...just a little confused by your previous comment..."let's not pretend to have the answer at the expense of other individuals". I did not suggest that. My only "religious view", is that I accept and appreciate anyones right to practice a religion IF it does not adversly impact others' rights in any way.

Jul 2 2011:
Colleen:
"Do you honestly believe that as humans we have ALL the information?"
I don't know about the others (though I can guess), but I definitely think we don't; and that we probably never will
If we would have ALL information, we wouldn't need statistics in science, or inductive logic for that matter...

It is exactly because we have incomplete information that we have mathematical models for it, and that we have figured out how to make reasonable claims about reality.

I state that, given all information that I have obtained, the probability has been converging to 0 of any nonexistent thing. I do of course imply that any new information can change my opinion.

Jul 2 2011:
I totally agree Christophe:>)
I percieve life to be an exploration, and with new information, my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, ideas and opinions often change as well. It feels to me like those who think they have the "right" answer, have ended the exploration...which is always a choice:>)

Jul 3 2011:
Thanks for asking. Not really a point. Agnosticism was only the tag I put myself in the times when I didn't think deeply in religion. I was young. Years later I discovered philosophy and science. I learn a lot on religions too. Later I attend Physics at university and realized all big mystery were explained. Well explained. The critic thinking and a deep scientific knowledge of the universe moved me to Atheism. When I need an explanation of a fact I follow the causality chain backward to the beginning. And god isn't anywhere in that chain.
Some day a persons ask me about god and I realized I become Atheo.

Jul 1 2011:
Chris,
Face it.... such things cannot be proven.. you can't "prove" it with math .... and it's a foolish proposition to suppose it possible.
Can you prove to me that you think ? Isn't your own thinking non-material ....?

What is the mathematical probability that a human being can think....??? It sounds pretty absurd... but I'm sure that you can come up with a bright answer...... or ?

Jul 3 2011:
Daniel,
It is not good to project ones own ignorance onto others.

For me to prove that I think, we need to agree on a test that would be sufficient for you to accept that I think. But the fact that I can reply to you should be good enough already.

The probability that people think is near 1. And we do this with our brains, which is clearly a physical thing, as is all the activity and computation going on in there.
All information and computation needs a measurable difference in some kind of matter. Information needs a carrier there is nothing immaterial about it.

Jul 3 2011:
Chris,
Being aware of the apparent danger that I set myself in regards to proclaiming that you can neither "prove" a world view (Atheism) or "prove" a thought or thinking process exists, I will just the same repeat myself... It is a foolish proposition to claim to be able to prove Atheism... the proposition is foolish.... I didn't say that you Christophe are foolish. It is like saying... as our friend on the "proving koran" discussion would like to "prove Islam" or "prove Christianity" Such things are simply not subject to the falling ax of "proof" You can prove a mathematical theory, you can prove a geometrical equation, you can prove many things that can be weighed and measured. But you cannot prove a perspective on life... If you really think that this is possible with your mathematical statistics ... well then your way out on a limb of your own abstractions.
And furthermore, a thought, even if it could possibly be a "material thing",(which is also a complete misconception) if it could be "carried" (your word) by the physical brain makes it no more "physical in its nature" Thoughts could get pretty heavy.... I guess... a scientist might be "proven" to have a heavier brain because of all the thoughts he carries around in it.....The carrier of the thought can be measured and weighted.... not the thought itself.
Atheism is no more than a collection of ideas. A philosophical collection of "weightless"ideas. Just like a religious collection of ideas. To say that you can prove them is pretty far fetched... You may be able to convince yourself that they are 99.9999 percent true, but to prove them statistically seems to be wandering outside the realm of the scientific method.. After all... isn't this what some of the creationists do..? I mean... what good is it to discuss "proving koran" ..... really....??

Jul 5 2011:
Karthik,
It is simply because "Atheism" is a form for looking at the world... like capitalism is one form for looking at a monetary system. It is an "ideology" which has no logical way of proving of disproving. The consequenses of what certain elements of an ideology might bring forth in the world are one thing. Those consequenses are also in a way irrelevant. Take for example the debate around evolution. If it is in fact true... then the world has to take the consequenses of that which is truth. We cant begin to allow any ideology to bend and form the "truth" to fit what they themselves think should be for the "best" for the world. The truth is the truth and it is that and only that which should be allowed to form the oppinions of the world. To say that any certain truth should not be allowed to be public knowledge is in a way to go backwards in time. Certain religious groups like the Catholic church have done this for centuries. So the truth should be our only and highest motivation in all our human endevours.

Jul 7 2011:
Karthik,
I agree with you that people will only open their heart and mind to information when/if they are ready to do so. Are atheists "going wrong", as you stated? Or could it be that they want to share their beliefs to anyone who is willing to listen?

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Jul 3 2011:
OK...so...if "everything we experience is just an emergent property of the electromechanical processing of the brain", how does that prove or disprove atheism?

An atheist is one who denies the existence of god. I know people who call themselves atheists because they do not believe in god, but they do believe in some kind of afterlife, which I think is the point Daniel was trying to make by mentioning NDEs that have been experienced by atheists.

Jul 3 2011:
Hi Austin,
I agree that harsh comentary usually goes both ways, and that's when the discussion starts breaking down.

I percieve the thought process to be both material and non-material because as Christophe insightfully points out, it needs a carrier...the brain...material. The process itself, however, in my humble opinion, is non-material, and flows through the brain....which I thinik is the point Daniel was trying to make? Is there any material proof of our thinking process? If we are hooked up to some machines, of course, there is evidence of brain activity, but without that, in a natural state, is there any proof, or material evidence of the process?

Jul 3 2011:
Jim,
I had a longer discussion on just this topic a few month ago. The title was " Is consciousness merely a by-product of the physical brain" It lasted for 1 month and there were about 650 comments. It was also a very interesting discussion that weaved in and out of many of the aspects of the physical brain, thinking, consciousness, NDE, OBE, and more. I guess it's still out there on TED if you are interested. As to the support of the default hypothesis, that thinking comes from the neural firing or the electromagnetic processes of the brain.... well.... one can always ask oneself the question ... is the interpretation (our thinking..?) of these electromagnetic processes... something that is also free from the e.m.p. themselves.... are they their own existing entity... or... are our thoughts also a "physical process" that we have no "consciousness" over.... as we have absolutely no feeling or thought or will activity involved in this neural or electromagnetic process.... But still we are aware that we can think, we can dream, we can be the active participant in our own thought process and yet have absolutely no awareness of the neural activity... ... we can think about thinking.... we can decide ourselves what "I" want to think about... I can think whatever thought I wish regardless of my uncontrolled neural activity. When a person is put into an EMI machine and the "mapped" in their neural activity... they always have to be asked to think of something or told to think of something or asked what are "you" thinking of now.... The determining factor of the result of the mapping is not the electromagnetic activity that appears but rather the electromagentic activity that comes to the foreground after the person in the EMI experiment is asked first to think.....

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Jul 3 2011:
Well ok Jim,
You just made up your own definition, talked yourself around in a big ol' circle and changed the topic...so be it! I am very aware of what the topic of this discussion is, and I didn't beat my children!

I agree...at any given time we understand some things, may construct hypothesis to fill in gaps, and only a very small percentage of people become educated enough to understand and reason:>) There are also people who make statements they are not willing to follow through with, so they make up their own definitions and come up with a new hypothesis:>)

There are two topics I like to elaborate on.
1) Proving non existing things:
Imagine a container full of golf-balls.
We could ask ourselves if all balls in it are white golf-balls...
So we take one out, look at it and see if it is non-white.
Each time you take out another white ball, the chance that there are non-white balls in the container decreases.
The number of balls drawn from the container and our certainty of all white follows a nice distribution.
Even if the container contains an infinite amount of balls, we might decide after some time that we are sufficiently certain to assume that all balls are white. And we know our margin of error too!

As such, one can make assumptions whether something does or does not exist.

2) As for a process being non-material:
I think that all processes are material as well. Though one can make abstraction of the materials (and do similar processes with other materials), the existence of the process is due to the (material) components making it happen and having observable effects.

How the brain works is very unlikely to bring proof for the (in)existence of some higher entity.

Jul 4 2011:
Christophe,
I agree to disagree:>) I think you are only considering one dimension, and that seems limiting to me. However, whether or not the thought process is material or non-material, I don't think proves or disproves atheism, so technically, it's off topic anyway:>) As you say...how the brain works is unlikely to bring proof for the existence or non existence of some higher entity.

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Jul 4 2011:
Jim,
I agree that semantics are important in discussions. I'm not trying to correct you on anything, nor am I trying to tell you what it means to be an atheist. I have no intention to paint atheism in any light what so ever. I am participating in a discussion, which started with a particular question, the meaning I used comes from the dictionary, and is pretty well recognized. Of course you're encouraged to clarify your beliefs. No, I don't "yank chains". Your last comment seemed very evasive to me, and felt like you were yanking MY chain.

I asked you an honest question, which followed your statement....."if everything we experience is just an emergent property of the electromechanical process of the brain"...(which I'm not disagreeing with by the way)..."how does that prove or disprove atheism"?

I don't think your statement proves or disproves atheism, but I honestly was open to your perspective. I agree with Christophe, that how the brain works is unlikely to bring forth proof for the topic.

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Jul 4 2011:
Yes Jim, I was taking the discussion seriously. I don't know what it means to "prove atheism", but I entered this conversation respectfully, with intent to learn. You don't have to prove anything, but you did enter this discussion as well, knowing what the topic is. Apparently, you were just having a little fun:>)

Jul 5 2011:
@ Karthik Mishra
[quote]But even you would agree that nomatter how many white balls you draw from the container, there is still a possibility of drawing a non-white ball. You yourself said possibly with more information you might change your opinion. But since you don't have all information, you cannot be sure of anything. So I don't see a point to hurt other peoples feelings, by saying they are wrong, instead of saying, they are probably wrong.[/quote]

1) You do have the degree of uncertainty, and I do allow for a possibility. A very very small possibility. I would not bet on it though... Like the probability of Bigfoot or unicorns or Spaghetti monsters circling in the oortcloud are near zero.
So as a probabilistic thinker, I do sometimes round down to zero, to make things easier. In the meanwhile I'll leave it to the other ones to drain the bin of balls. If they do come up with a non-white ball, I'll be very surprised and at that point, I'll change my opinion.

2) I don't want to hurt people. But if people get hurt by my statements, then that is their problem of getting hurt by it. I try and not attack people personally, (though I might sometimes be tempted and do so, I'm only human as well). I do attack bad ideas and unlikely probabilities. It is wrong to dismiss a hypothesis with a much higher probability by saying it is all uncertain. Uncertain is everything between 0 (false) and 1 (true). And there is a much bigger difference between 30% and 50% likelihood and 99.999% and 100% likelihood. So the error people make when saying everything is (equally) uncertain is totally absurd and an utter logical fallacy.

If you cannot differentiate between your ideas (and beliefs), their truth value and your identification with them, you might get hurt. I cannot help that (except try and explain).
I attack ideas, not people.

Well, if suddenly a herd of unicorns get discovered, that would be relevant (informative) for my disbelief in unicorns.
If there suddenly appears something non-human made that would start to do miracles and improve peoples lives, forgives sins and cleanses our burdens of errors we made,... then that would be very informative for the existence of a god (-like entity).

Information is something that is relevant for the existing hypothesis (plural): if it has power to change the estimated truth value.

Of course, the quality of data can be a problem: I don't believe claims of revelation or take what people say as necessary valuable. The source of information must be reliable enough.
Most sciences have developed quite nice methods of obtaining information... so you could start to dig into those for more examples

Jul 7 2011:
Karthik,
Thanks for the story about your mother, because it reminded me that it was my parents from whom I got my first look into religion. My mother was an unconditionally loving person, who lived her beliefs, while being kind, respectful and loving to everyone. My father was a racist, bigot, violent abusive man, who did a lot of volunteer work for the church and school, so he was "honored" by the church. My mother was told by the priest that she was doing an act of god by staying with this man, even though he beat her and some of his children regularly. They both attended the same church...sat in the front row on Sunday...recieved communion...etc. They each had very different ideas about what being a religious person means. And their "guide", the priest, apparently had very different "guidence" for each of them.

I agree Karthik, that good morals can be learned, and I believe the learning has to come from us as individuals, no matter where the basis of our information comes from.

1. We notice evolution in real life, what your quacks would call "microevolution."
2. We notice that we can bring about extreme differences in dogs, cabbages, corn, whatever.
3. We thus extrapolate that if this happens in "real time," its consequences could be much bigger in the longer time, which would explain why, for instance, we look so similar to other apes, and why would there be a group like apes to begin with. We could think, could it be that the same processes we witness, and the differences in dogs/whatever we can attain, explain apes as descendants of a single species?
4. We don't stop there, we could then ask, if this is so, where should we find evidence about this? Well, the most similar apes to us are chimps and gorillas, which are African, maybe we can find fossils of other apes, more and more similar to us in Africa?
5. We visit Africa, and, lo and behold, we find those fossils. We have also found some semi-human/semi-other-apes in Europe and Asia, but the most striking series has been found, and continues to be found, in Africa, with many more specimens showing more stages of intermediate features.

As you can see, that justifies evolution without any faith involved.

Of course, this is very simplified, and there's many more details confirming our common ancestry with the other apes. The example is simple, and does not go into more details about other species, and other evidences, for explanatory purposes.

Entropy? As long as there is energy from the sun, there is no reason to think that evolution goes against entropy. Remember, Harleys are not doable without energy, just as evolution would not happen without energy. Neither works against entropy at all. That would be impossible.

Jul 24 2011:
Hi Gabo
It is agreed that natural selection can hone a creature to suit it's environment. The quacks would say that this is because the dna code exists already in the creature & is selected or deselected as appropriate. Is this wrong ? Say you bought an SUV. It came with a spare set of winter wheels, a soft top, & a hard top. You then have an opportunity to customise it a bit. What you couldn't do is fit a set of cat' tracks; they are not part of the SUV.

Apes have lots of different shaped skulls as do humans. It may convince some if we lined up modern skulls in an fully ape to fully man fashion. Often all we have is bone fragments to work with, which makes it harder. You really have to accept the evolution theory in order to see it. Not to mention all the hoaxes, frauds, & mistakes that litter the history of hominid reconstruction.

Energy from the sun by itself is a lethal force. Harleys are made by carefully harnessing this energy in a carefully designed & constructed factory. Even then the sun will ultimately destroy the factory & all the Harleys.
Certainly the sun can produce babies, but only through the supremely complex medium of mum & dad. What have the factory & the Mum/Dad machine in common ? Complexity. Which is the more complex ? No contest; MumDad machine. If the factory didn't evolve, why should we believe MumDad did ?

You are missing the point. Regardless of whatever quacks say, we observe actual adaptations bringing changes, sometimes quite spectacular, to populations, even speciation, even new structures. Often in nature, very prominently in domestication. This inspires the idea of evolution, and thus we reason what would that entail and search for evidence (for or against). No quack dismissals changes these facts at all.

Scientists don't align apes to their liking, they have to go by scientific data, such as dating, geography, environment. Then by observing which anatomical features reveal what. If fossils were aligned to someone's liking, we wouldn't see so much overlap between hominid groups, with species of australopithecins, for example, living at the same time as species of Homo. Frauds have been discovered to be frauds, and thus rejected, by scientists, not by your quacks. Despite frauds, there are plenty of trustable fossils, with clear intermediary features. I insist also that your complains don't not change the very fact that if evidence confirms the prediction, then evolution does not take faith. That you manage to dismiss the evidence because your quacks say so is a different problem, and does not change what I explained. I am not asking you to believe evolution, but to understand why it does not require faith.

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The sun is not always a lethal force. None of my plants outside has any problem with the sun. The carefully designed factory required energy to be carefully designed, the babies required energy to be built. You will find no single point where energy is not needed, and thus nothing in human tasks, nor in natural tasks, that goes against entropy. All of them, including evolution, use energy. Otherwise they would not be possible. Evolution uses exactly the very same processes as life itself. Evolution is the natural consequence of life itself. Thus, if life does not break any rules, evolution does not break any rules. Simple.

Jul 24 2011:
Why shouldn't we believe that Mum/Dad evolved? Comparing life with human technology to conclude that "human-like beings (gods) make nature," is philosophically unsound. Nature works before human technology, not after it. Does fire occur naturally? Yes. Can we make fire? Yes. Do we need intelligence to make fire? Yes. Should we therefore conclude that natural fire requires intelligence to be built? Should we therefore conclude that natural fire is produced by a god?

The problem is that as technology has evolved we have lost sight of its connection to natural laws, and that we tend to anthropomorphize based on our limited experiences. Just like fire can be both natural and intelligently produced, "designs" can be both natural and intelligently produced. When technologies were closer to what nature did, we still anthropomorphized and believed that gods were responsible for, say, natural fires. But now we know that there is no need for such a belief. Today we have evolution and natural laws to explain natural "design," and the only reason you don't believe it is because you don't understand it (thanks to some quackery and to your faith), the same way you understand combustion. You hold to misunderstood human technologies and what makes them possible, compounded with our human inclination to disjoin ourselves from the rest of nature. It is nonsensical to assume a need for intelligence for natural "designs" without a philosophically sound reason to separate what makes our technologies possible from what makes natural "technologies" possible, where natural laws and their consequences easily explain apparent intelligence. There is no sound reason to separate life from other natural processes either. If asked, have you seen "design" being built without intelligence in nature, I would say yes: look at life. If asked "other than that?" Yes, look at planetary systems ...

I hope I managed to present these ideas clearly. It is hard to convey these ideas in a few words.

I do understand your perspective, & realise it must be frustrating that I don't agree; irrespective of quacks. Let's assume that evolution/millions of years is all true.
We can look around at the universe; it's beautiful & in perfect balance. We can see it because our atmosphere just happens to be transparent & breathable, & we are well placed in the galaxy to have a good view. We can look at atoms & see little solar systems, again, in perfect balance.
Our world has hundreds of natural systems, all perfect for our survival. Our world is a battleground between good & evil, our inner being is also involved as we constantly fight temptation; not always successfully.
When I look around I have to admit that if there is no God then there are an awful lot of co-incidences. When the Atheist looks around he concludes that out of all the multiverses we are lucky to have arrived on this particular planet, in this particular universe. Maybe we don't see the wood for the trees.
.....
I found this definition of Entropy "All systems will tend towards the most mathematically probable state, and eventually become totally random and disorganised" (Harold Blum. Times Arrow & Evolution. 1968 p.201)
Both babies & plants have complex mechanisms to channel the sunlight. They provide a mathematically probable route. The formation of these systems from naturally occurring materials; I would contend; is mathematically & statistically most improbable.

It is not frustrating that you won't agree with me. It is frustrating that you miss the point, and the point is that we don't require faith to accept evolution. I showed you but a very simplified example of how we get to accept evolution, and that such thing does not require any faith. Just reason and data. The most you might say, if you were right, is that it took defective data to accept evolution, but defective data and faith are very different.

As for your comment. well, the atmosphere is transparent and breathable, and our planet that good for us, because we evolved in this environment. High-temperature life-forms could think that high temperatures are there for them, and that this planet was made for them because it has places at such temperatures. Environment first Pete, then adaptation. Atheists don't think we are lucky to be in this universe, but that we could not be in a universe that would not produce us (tautologically true). Water is not lucky to find a puddle, puddles get naturally filled with water.

---
The definition of entropy is somewhat right, but, as most simplified definitions, incomplete and misleading. That entropy is due to a tendency towards a more mathematically probable state, does not mean that things will end up random and disorganized. For example, given gravitational forces, it is more probable for a sufficiently high amount of hydrogen to collapse under its own mass, and start the fusion process, thus building more otherwise "improbable" atoms, such as helium. At the same time releasing energy at such high state that its flow into more probable states allows for complexity to arise. Like water flowing down allows us to produce electricity.

Did you read the bottom line on those "hominids that didn't make the headlines"?

More on dinos and soft tissue later. Preview: it is not what quacks want you to believe.

Jul 26 2011:
Hi Gabo
Jack Horner in his TED address talked about turning on some genes in the chicken which would give it teeth. This would be neat & change the chicken to something new; but doesn't the tooth gene have to be there in the first place ?
I know from experience that the more we breed dogs, the more fragile they become. `You eventually reach a limit, where no further change can take place. Then if we let them breed naturally, they will revert to mongrel. We hear that dino's became birds. How did they breath when their lungs were changing ? Why would it be of benefit to have a mixed up lung ?
I don't need quacks. It just isn't sensible to believe such things.

I asked my perennial question on a BB site & no-one answered. By what process does hydrogen 'clump'. It seems entirely at variance with the gas laws. "Gas will always expand to fill the volume available to it". Even more so if is ejected by an explosion into a void.

There are loads of guys pushing the infinite number of universes scenario to get round this problem. I agree with you to an extent, certainly more than the multiverse gang, but when you get all statistical about the odds on our universe, it's impossible. Just one little adjustment slightly different, & it's not going to work.

Yes I read the bit at the end. Either it didn't happen, or no-one reported it; weird!

Chickens have the genes for teeth, only "turned off." I think the omni-powerful intelligent designer had not decided yet if chickens would have teeth or not. :)

Sure pushing dogs too far gets them sick-prone because of over-inbreeding (we select for genetic uniformity), but the observation was how much we can reshape dogs within little time, not whether we imitate evolution perfectly.

I did not know that the lungs of dinos changed during their evolution into birds. Interesting.

Here: http://www.evolutionpages.com/bird_lung.htm
I found this:
"even in modern birds, there is a mixture of unidirectional flow through the so-called palaeopulmonic bronchi and bidirectional flow through the so-called neopulmonic bronchi."
Which seems to suggest there is no problem with "mixep up" lungs.

I told you the process for hydrogen to "lump." Randomness in space expansion and gravitation. You are thinking about gases in this planet, in small quantities, in recipients, rather than unimaginable amounts of hydrogen with such collective mass as to have great gravitational pulls. Man, our atmosphere is nothing in comparison, yet I doubt you think that air is uniformly distributed.

I don't believe the "odds" against our universe. Nobody has shown me anything but speculation about what could or could not have been. If I were to accept that speculation, then there is nothing stoping me from accepting the multiverses too. Why? Well, for fine-tuning, constants are assumed not to be constants, but variables (does not sound right). For multiverses, the initiation of our universe is assumed not to be a unique event (sounds reasonable). Thus, no problem.

I guess that if chickens needed teeth they would evolve them. They have the dna, it just needs turned on. I guess now & then a chicken is born with teeth, if it had an advantage then it may be healthier & leave more young. Job done; but only because the dna is there. What I need to see is something appearing for which there was originally no dna.

If the dogs get sicker as they change from the original, why would naturally evolving creatures get healthier ? The fruit fly experiments would seem to confirm this trend.
With the dogs we are using unadulterated dna, with natural macro evolution we are using mutated dna. Why should damaged code be better than original code ?

We can conjecture about hydrogen in space, but the hard science tells us that if you try & push hydrogen atoms together it resists. The gravitational pull between atoms is constant & totally unable to pull them together. Only the gravitational pull of the earth itself keeps our atmosphere here. We have about 14psi at sea level all over the planet. The wind moves to keep the overall pressure stable.

The multiverse thing just shows me how desperate folks are to deny the obvious design in the universe we have. These things are all very well, but why ignore the obvious ?

I told you why the dogs get sicker. We select for genetic uniformity, thus carrying a higher probability for deleterious versions of genes to get together. In natural evolution selection is survival alone, and the genetic diversity keeps the species healthy. When not, species get extinct (this has happened many more times than have species survived). It is a question of numbers, the more individuals in a population, the lowest the probability for bad combinations to occur. Mutated does not mean damaged. Means modified. I told you too that there is plenty of demonstration that the hypothesis that most mutations were harmful has been falsified (it is simply not true).

The hard science tell us that the gravitational forces of humungous quantities of hydrogen will make them collapse into each other and eventually start fusions. Ask the sun if it is not having its hydrogen fused. Physicists have done the math. If our planet's gravitation keeps our atmosphere here, what would you expect from thousands or millions of times that pull? You can't win this one Pete. Reality beats misinformation.

The multiverses is not about any desperation. It actually opened the door to newer analyses that seem to be making much better sense of the universe's origin. There is nothing obvious in the assumption of a designed universe. It relies of constants being variable. That alone is contradictory. If we then asked "designed for what" we would have a very hard time showing that it is designed for us. As far as we know we would not survive in most of our own universe. We can't even hope to reach it. Thus, which design? Design for what exactly? It looks obvious to me that design is not a proper description of reality even at less contentious levels. We can't even say that about our solar system. We can't live in most of it either. So, what's obvious about the universe being designed?

With you on the dogs, but not on the mutation. If a piece of code is working well & we randomly change it, surely the odds are stacked against any beneficial effect. Have you got a link that I could understand ?

This is cool. Apparently hydrogen 'clumps' by falling on to 'Dark Matter' to form a 'blob'. I love it, the answer to my dreams! I'm sorry, but this is hilarious.
So now we have Dark Matter AND Hydrogen forming at the BB. There is the slight problem of not having a scoobie what DM actually is, or even IF it is. Together with Dark Energy & Dark Flow they remain a mystery.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agqjaX2_QVI&feature=related
Biblically speaking :-
The universe is designed to introduce us to the designer. It is awesome & maybe eternal. One thing I get from it is that we are capable of working it out to some extent. So we have the ability to see how the designer achieved at least parts of it. He is sharing the knowledge with us. There is no evolutionary reason why we would understand these things. It is designed that we can understand.
We are children. When we are grown we may well be able to travel the universe at will. Jesus could pass through walls, levitate out of sight etc. At any rate it seems we are to have a new universe, which may or may not be similar to this one. I can hardly wait .

Answering here to avoid having to look for our exchange among so much of a mess already.

1. Geological columns deposit in many different ways, not just streams of water.
2. Nobody would be able to publish a result and write methods where each column requires to change many variables to make them fit into a chronology. That's preposterous. In my own field, when I need to change a variable for some particular situation, I have to justify it very clearly before reviewers would let me publish my results.
3. All the geological columns show obvious eroded surfaces. That's one of the things that person in the video showed. For instance, shales inclined at an extreme angle, with sandstone on top (different angle), where the surface between the shales and sandstone shows signs of erosion.
4. Sorry, I misunderstood one part of what this quack was saying.
5. Erosion is very common. It shows as discontinuities that on closer inspection show signs of erosion.
The layers I saw during the only one course I took on geology did not show grain sizes big at the bottom and small at the top at all. The layers I have seen look quite uniform within. (Physics shows the opposite of your claim. Fine grain tends to find its way down thus pushing big grains up. We made the experiment in physics, we put stones at the bottom and sand at the top, and shakind brought some stones to the surface. I have also observed big stones appearing after an earth quake.)
6. If real life would have more processes happening, why base everything on mistaken stream experiments?
7. Transcontinental layers happen in places that were together once.
8. The guy showed deposition happening sideways, which is consistent with streams, but still one layer was on top of an older one. Scientists would notice the patterns and conclude "stream deposited, thus also older within a layer going upstream." Nothing contradictory to geology as we know it.

1. Agreed.
2. For radio' dating we need to know such things as; amount of original radioactive material; the amount of the original daughter material; amount of materials that are lost by solubility in water etc. over the period; (A global flood would certainly distort readings); decay rates have remained constant; possibility of contamination after excavation. Impossible to be sure of any degree of accuracy with so many arbitrary variables.
3.-5. Need to nail down your suggested mechanism of deposition. Does each layer take a long time, or short time? Is there a long time or short time associated with the gaps in the layers ? Are the majority laid down wet, or dry ?
6. The vid guy started with real life core drillings. Lab work is a necessity don't you think ?
7. This makes sense, but if the plates have taken millions of years to get where they are today then why are there not lots more layers on top that are associated with the separated continents ? If the layers were laid as the continents were in transit a different picture would present.
8. I guess a tsunami is just a very wide stream. the same sideways deposition would apply. Certainly at any given point the lower deposits are older, but at the upstream end the top layer is older than the bottom layer at the downstream end. This would make it impossible to 'date' fossils chronologically.

Jul 24 2011:
2. Does not matter, scientists have to be consistent, thus a chronologically sound set of layers is chronologically sound by itself. You can't force them to be so by changing variables with gusto. That's simply not allowed.
3-5. Several rates of deposition. Most layers containing fossils come from swamps, not from rivers.
6. Real core drilling of stream deposited materials, not of any geological layers.
7. There are more layers on top. Actually sometimes "equivalent layers" are much closer to the surface in one part than in another (because of either local erosion, or lack of much further deposition on one place, much more deposition in other places.
8. Maybe a tsunami is a much faster "stream," but I doubt it would deposit layers as in the video. It would also leave behind flooded places where deposition would happen slowly. What about swamps Pete? There is plenty of evidence of huge swamps in the past. Would layers be deposited as if rivers in swamps?
Fossils could be dated chronologically as long as we followed layers vertically, and corrections would have to be made as one moves upstream or downstream. How strong the corrections? As strong as whatever evidence tells scientists to do. Again, not every layer is stream-deposited. Scientists (geologists) know these things Pete. They can determine if layers are swamp-deposited, stream-deposited, flood-deposited, volcano-deposited, quickly deposited, slowly deposited ...

One more note: that this geologist does not know what each and every creationist accepts (such as an ice age), does not mean she does not know her stuff. I don't know what every creationist believes, I know they vary a lot in what they believe. I still know my stuff (molecular biology) very well. Creationism is neither required for me to understand my stuff, nor to understand geology. Clear?

I would have thought that any swamp fossils would be in shale layers, as mud becomes shale under pressure (I think). Moving water would normally give sandstone, although some layers will be a mixture. We live close to the beach and the rocks are clean sandstone with very clearly defined thin layers. The sea is at present converting the rock back into sand.

"Fossils could be dated chronologically as long as we followed layers vertically, and corrections would have to be made as one moves upstream or downstream."
That's not the way it is done though. Fossils are aged by what layer they are in. The assumption is that each layer is laid vertically on the other, & that each layer is a different age. As you say, this scenario is probable in swamps, but most fossils are in sandstone as far as I know.

The flood hypothesis would make rivers & swamps secondary though. We would have water a mile deep sloshing back & forth over all the land carrying the silt from land & sea-bed around the globe. If we look on the top of Grand Canyon there are Butes several hundred feet tall which are testimony to previous layers which have been swept away en-mass leaving only the Butes. These will erode by wind & rain fairly quickly by your time scale. How could such masses of sand be transported by anything other than very deep & very fast water ?

I don't suppose for a second that paleontologists would not know what kind of rock they are working with. I don't think that any layer would necessarily have been deposited uniformly all along, but rather that it solidified mostly as a piece if it were to be identifiable as a single layer. If stream-deposited, then the differences between upstream and downstream might range in time maybe by decades, maybe centuries at most. Thus, geologically ridiculously small differences to become a dating problem. In other words, the precision against millions of years would be pretty good. If there were huge upstream/downstream differences, scientists would know and correct accordingly. Other scientists would not allow them to publish otherwise.

While, I have read that most fossils are found in swamp-deposited layers, that seems inconsequential because scientists have to openly say what they did, how they did it, and so on. Not all the details make it into textbooks (they are voluminous as it is), that does not mean scientists don't know their jobs. I would trust scientists because I know about the rigour for working and for publishing, and I can't believe that quacks are trusted when they say that things are done in obviously wrong ways as if quacks knew better than scientists themselves. Quacks have pretended to teach me about molecular biology, and I insult them with gusto for their pretence. Since I know how much they prostitute what I do, I don't expect them to be any more respectful about geology, paleontology, or any other science. That they would tell you that paleontologists don't know about how rocks form, or the types of rocks that would be formed under which circumstances, or that some layers might need corrections for dating, does not surprise me. What does surprise me is that you would believe such things.

You talk about layers & fossils forming in a stream. Surely a stream cuts into the ground, so a build up of layers would be impossible. The chances of a fossil forming are remote indeed.
I was trying to get an idea of what size of areas fossils are normally found in, but haven't succeeded so far. I get the impression that if you get the correct rock layer then fossils are possible throughout the layer. Don't know.

Maybe it's because you are in the trade that you get wound-up over quacks. Personally I try & learn from everybody, but some things make sense & some things don't.
What about the Butes that I mentioned. We see them in all the old western films sticking out of the desert like fingers. Some are deposited & I guess some may be volcanic. It seems obvious that an enormous amount of earth has been taken from the surface of the land & dumped many miles away; leaving only these stone fingers. Some are so thin that they will not last long, suggesting this may be a recent event. I have never read about this from either side, I just wonder myself. What do you think ?

I said that most fossils form in swamps. But to your point about streams forming layers, didn't then that guy in the video that you asked me to watch show layers being formed by deposition of debris carried by streams? Have you seen the deposits at deltas?

I would find you a link to fossils and the sizes of layers where they are found, but no time now. Try some real places rather than quacks. I don't know, maybe national geographic. That lady I pointed to before has some excellent material too if you can get past her style.

Anyway, yes, I detest the quacks because I know they lie about my area of research, and that this is not a matter of interpretation. They show that they have no idea of what they are talking about. I detest imbeciles who have never done any scientific work (worse for the few who have done some scientific work, because they should know better) coming and displaying their ignorance with pride while pretending to know better than me how I work, how I verify my results, what results I have and have not, and, to top it up, my "motivation" to keep the "Darwinist dogma." As if I would not notice their cherry-picking, their ignorance, and their lies. That's why I get "wound up." Since I know that they lie about my scientific area, why should I think they don't lie about everything else?

I don't know about those Butes. I kinda remember them being formed by wind erosion, but not sure. Note that I took just one course of geology long ago, and in Spanish. I will check when I have time. Which is not now.

Jul 28 2011:
Hi Gabo
The apparatus the guy used could be likened to a stream in that it was narrow. I guess it is all to do with the speed of the water how much is deposited. He is trying to simulate a flood/tsunami type condition. If this was in a stream I guess the silt would eventually back-up like a dam; the water would be held for a while & then overtop in a rush & move the silt farther downstream. The long-term action of a stream is to gouge a track for itself.

I found this photographic site with bute like structures; hoodoos. The caption says wind eroded just like you remember. They are obviously deposited structures & therefore not particularly hard. Obviously today they are being eroded by wind. If we look at a desert we find lots of sand & sand-dunes; the wind treats the sand very like the sea,it piles up in great waves. We never find a bute. To me millions of years of wind erosion would have leveled these butes as the level of the land lowered. Also where is the sand ? Why is it not piled up in waves like the desert ?
My money would be on a massive rush of water that washed the sand well out to sea & left these butes sticking up very precariously as we find them today.

Starting new thread because now it takes forever to find your comments.

1. Anyway, let us be clear. Whatever you think your criteria to be based on, if it is not known, and if it is not possible to prove reasonably, then you cannot claim it to be objective. Calling it "objective" is complete, unadulterated, and extra-pure nonsense.

2. What exactly is nonsensical about having a feeling for justice if it will not be fulfilled? Do you think everything we feel is fulfilled? If so you must be a teen (and up to some painful surprises). Having a sense for justice helps us distinguish those persons who we can trust and thus associate with. We are gregarious animals. Other animals have this feeling too. Do you think all animals have their own heavens where they get their desire for justice fulfilled?

3. Wouldn't any reasonable person doubt the existence of a god if such god is not approachable by reason?

4. Wouldn't any reasonable person doubt the existence of their particular god by looking at how many other people believe in either a different version of the same god, or in a completely different god? Have you read those things by Ahmadi? He is as convinced by Islam as you are about your version of Christianity. As immutable. Why would he be right and you wrong? Why would you be right and he wrong?

5. Amplification of 4. Wouldn't any reasonable person doubt of their god after looking at the many gods humans have invented throughout history?

6. Wouldn't a reasonable person doubt of their god if people believing in other gods are going to hell because of being born in the "wrong" religion? Wouldn't a reasonable person doubt that their god is "all-good" given this?

There's more. But that should show you that if you don't find reasons to doubt your god, it is because you are willingly blind. But reasonable people would certainly doubt.

Will you dare to say that no reasonable person would doubt their god now? (thus redefining reasonable)

You make much of the fact that people have many & various gods. Does this make it more, or less, likely that there is a real god ?
There are over 100 worldwide flood stories. Does this make it more, or less, likely that there was a real worldwide flood ?
There are hundreds of dragon stories. Does this make it more, or less, likely that there were real dragon type creatures (Dinosaurs?) ?

I suspect that you would answer in the negative, & I in the positive. However, which do you think would be the more scientific approach ?

I would say that god is perfectly approachable by reason, sometimes you have do dig through lots of smoke to get there though.

That people have many gods makes it implausible that a god in particular is real. That we are surrounded by Christianity is but a geographical accident. There is no reason why Christians would be right and Muslims wrong, nor vice versa. That's the start of a doubt. It does not mean that all gods are nonexistent, but it can make a reasonable person doubt their own god at the very least. It can lead later to complete disbelief once the issues are further explorer. But the point was about arguments that would make a reasonable person doubt. Not about whether that alone made all gods false.

That there could be hundreds of thousands, or millions, of flood stories does not increase the likelihood that a global one occurred because no amount of myths trumps reality. There is no geological evidence of your global flood. That's the scientific approach.

Dragons? Besides other things, the existence of dinosaur fossils might be inspiration for such stories. Such fossils don't need to be alive in order for people's to make stories about what those animals could have been. Again, no amount of stories trumps reality.

Eduard said that there were no arguments that would make any reasonable person doubt the existence of "God," and he is the one who said his god could not be proven reasonably. I know that not all Christians think that. I note however, that so far every argument for the existence of "God" I have heard or read is faulty once you "dig through the smoke." :)

You really need to check out the beliefs & see if any are reasonable. ie. confirmed by empirical data... history, archeology, science etc. I believe Christianity ticks the boxes, but I know you disagree; that's cool.

To me layers of waterborne mud, silt, & sand laid down on a worldwide scale screams flood. I have never found a workable hypothesis for the resulting column having been formed by a slow process. The fossils would not be there. The fossil layers must have been formed quickly; there is no erosion between layers, how did it happen ?

Dragons were well established before dino's were discovered. Science had always denied their existence, so when they started to be excavated we had to come up with a new creature, so the term dinosaur (terrible lizard) was coined. Folks were drawing dinosaurs before they were discovered by science; seems strange.

I feel that I came to believe quite reasonably by weighing up the facts. In the end though I had to make a commitment based on faith. Not blind faith, but based on the available evidence. Subsequently any lingering doubts were dealt with & now I am as certain as it is possible to be. I am still open to evidence though, as it is the Truth that matters, but the evolution scenario seems to require even greater faith.

I don't want to be too condemning, but your comment about layers is obviously taken from creationist quacks. Of course there is erosion among layers. Many signs of erosions happening several times in geological time. Not only that, often the erosions leave columns a bit sideways, which show better that erosion has actually happened, not only that, sometimes the columns are very much slanted and erosion too obvious. This you learn the very first time you learn about sedimentary rocks.

Fossils don't form just anywhere, and there are more fossils of animals who lived close to water such as lakes, few of animals who lived far. This alone talks against a single event burying all the fossilized animals. The bottoms of lakes are good for fossilization because of lose sediments that could bury animals quite quickly, not always, but often enough for there to be fossils. The most abundant fossils, diatoms, sedimented through millions of years into very deep chalk layers. They also show erosion and such between layers. Again, myths don't trump reality.

Dinosaur fossils were discovered before scientists re-discovered them and named them dinosaurs. But myths about dragons don't come from dinosaur fossils alone. Myths can come from crocodiles fossils, from actual crocodiles, from big lizards, from giant salamanders, from ...

That you would give me an argument and then not understand my answers tells me that you don't understand the facts other than via creationist quacks alone. I am not trying to be harsh, but this is the only thing I can conclude. Sorry. That you would repeat that creationist quackery about evolution requiring more faith only affirms my conclusion. You are far from open Pete. I understand that you might have no time, but all that means is that simple lies will weight more than complex truths for you because you might not even want to learn enough to understand the complex truths.

Sorry Gabo, but the flood thing makes much more sense to me; regardless of quacks. Can you direct me to a site that would explain in simple terms how the layers were deposited; ideally with water tank (or whatever) experiments that would support the existing strata.

My problem is that the deposition needs to be quick to form fossils, but slow to support a long timescale. That's just common sense; no quack required.

""We've mentioned cherry picking several times. You have somehow concluded that (evolution) is true and your world view now hinges on the truth of (evolution) You find isolated facts that you can explain with (evolution) and you use those facts as evidence of the truth of (evolution). But for each such isolated fact, you interpret the fact through the worldview of (evolution) meaning you see a distorted view of the fact. And, when other facts disagree with(evolution) you interpret them also through the worldview of(evolution), and find ways to discredit them.""
We're not so different.

""Many fossils are due to mud slides and volcanic ash. "" So they are, but not the majority.

In children's books dragons are fire-breathing monsters, but in cave paintings etc. they are known dinosaurs.

:-)

Comment deleted

Interesting. The meanders of the river certainly agree with the river theory, I'd need to check for rebuttals. However to accept that the uplift happened in sequence with the river eroding the canyon takes a bit of believing.

I think we have to go with what the evidence is telling us overall; to accept an overall theory in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary is not wise. Neither can we be an expert in all fields.

I do wish these guys would cease from the childish mockery of the 'other side'. It in no way instills confidence in the weight given to their opinion & raises doubts about insecurity in their own position. I guess you were just unfortunate in the vid chosen .

I agree, to accept an overall theory in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary is not wise. This is why I don't understand how despite we show your quacks wrong again and again, you still hold to their words. Here I explained to you that the layers of sedimentary rocks certainly show erosion, that they show movement, inclines, eroded inclines, new layers in an angle respective to the eroded layers below, long et cetera. Now you see meanders in the canyon, and I am sure we have presented you more than just that. Yet, there you are, believing a "flood theory." So, what happens then with the debunked "no erosion" part? Gone and ignored? What happens with different environments revealed by fossils at such layers? I insist with no intention of being insulting. You did not become a believer because of evidence. You just happened to listen to quacks and believed what they told you never checking what actual science and evidence had to say.

You talk against the mockery against the quacks. Well, your quacks show a complete lack of respect, not just towards actual scientists, like myself, but towards their clientele (such as you). The mockery is very well deserved, and I think that in this video makes the points extra clear. There is another video where potholer54 shows some trees and little plants running away from the flood following the flood "theory" to explain the patterns in the fossil record. Does that not make the point that the swim-faster explanation is too ridiculous to be taken seriously? Would you remember the point without such mockery? Pete, when creationist propaganda proposes ridiculous things, they have to be shown by how ridiculous they are. Otherwise we would be giving them a status of respectability that they simply don't deserve.

OK Humour me.
You claim there is erosion between the layers, indicating a long period of time. Let's leave that for the moment.

1. Are the layers water deposited (for the most part) ?
2. Can we assume that fossil bearing layers were deposited rapidly ?
3. Is the scenario then a quick flood, followed by a long period, followed by another quick flood etc ?
4. Assuming yes for 1-3
4a. How do we explain fossil trees continuing through many layers ?
4b. How do we explain a global continuity sufficient to postulate a standard column ?

I am trying to get at what you see is the mechanism responsible for the results we observe. Is there any solid experimental data to support this ?

Sorry to exasperate you old buddy, but I really want to understand what you guys think. This sort of information is not easy to nail down.

Jul 18 2011:
No, let's not leave it ever. :)
(There are not just a few erosion marks in those layers, but many.)

1. Sometimes water deposited, sometimes volcanic ash, sometimes wind accumulating sands in valleys, sometimes ... but even water-deposited means different things, sometimes deposited at the bottom of swamps, bottom of lakes, sometimes at the end of rivers (deltas), sometimes meanders, sometimes floods ...
2. Probably. But that does not mean that deposition happens at a single rate.
3. Sometimes a quick flood, sometimes things sinking to the bottom of swamps or of lakes, sometimes buried by a mudslide, sometimes buried by volcanic ash ...
4. Well, things are a bit more complicated as you can see. But:
a. Most fossils don't span several layers, and are most often found sandwiched. If they were deposited by a single hyper bunch of sediment we would see all kinds of fossils everywhere, in any position, trapped in a single kind of sediment, right? Not ordered strata, with different kinds of fossils, mostly sandwiched as if flattened, with fossils and materials indicating climates consistent within layers, different across layers. For different climates entrapped you need very long periods of time. I doubt 40 days and 40 nights would do.
b. Exceptions, such as your trees, cannot be presented as if the rule. In the most consistent scenario with your preferred conclusion, they would indicate a local flood rather than a global one. In other words, you can't dismiss most fossils and geological evidence because of a relatively few vertical fossil trees. Exceptions are explained by exceptional circumstances, not the other way around.

There's lots of solid experimental data for sedimentary rock formation, for distinguishing flora and fauna from different climates, and for distinguishing different materials. Long et cetera.

I think that if the methods of deposition were as many & varied as you suggest, that it would be difficult to make a good case for a global 'geologic column'.
Now I am in difficulty as I have to grovel & ask you to check out a quack......